Members of our Community Editorial Board, a group of community residents who are engaged with and passionate about local issues, respond to the following question: Earlier this month, the Trump administration notified all 56 state and jurisdictional humanities councils — including Colorado’s — that their funding had been eliminated effective immediately. With the loss of that NEH funding, arts and culture programs across Colorado are at risk. Your take?

“An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.”

Often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, this quotation summarizes what’s at stake in the current controversies around funding for the arts and humanities. While it’s tempting to respond to this week’s question with an impassioned defense of ars gratia artis (art for art’s sake), we are way beyond that. The proposed funding cuts are more than an attack on the arts and humanities — as important as these may be. They are the vanguards of an attack on both our form of government and our future generations.

The defunding of arts and humanities programs is part of a long-term strategy to eliminate the very possibility of dissent by destroying the soil in which critical thinking can grow. It is a direct attack on the imagination of future generations. Without exposure to alternative perspectives, forms of government, ways of relating, value systems, historical narratives, etc., future generations will be limited in their ability to develop the cognitive and emotional tools with which to picture anything other than the status quo.

In short, defunding the arts and humanities would leave us with nothing but what we can see in front of our eyes. A world without the arts and humanities would be a world without context and history. In such a world, our ability to imagine and create a future that differs from the present one would be critically hobbled by our ignorance of the legacy of change left by previous generations. Our own sense of possibility, power and agency would be eroded by the absence of easy access to examples of such popularly propelled changes as the civil rights and public health movements. Without an understanding of history — and an understanding of the various perspectives on history — we would have no frame of reference for what humans are capable of doing and what governments can be empowered to provide.

Such a course of action would also leave us without a way to understand the roots of contemporary issues. For example, in this context, we would be vulnerable to narratives that attributed income inequality solely to differences in individual ability versus differences in opportunities. We might be inclined to view pandemics as inevitable rather than as subject to human efforts at prevention. If we did not know about what life was like without due process, there would be no way for us to really appreciate its importance or any motivation to fight for its return.

Indeed, it has been government support of public education, PBS, depictions of realities that differ from ours, works of art that promote empathy and so on that have allowed me to live in the current world while simultaneously knowing — and acting on — the possibility that we can make things better. If I had not learned about the health care systems in other countries, I would not be considering the idea of a single-payer system in the U.S. Without exposure to the artifacts and explanations in the Natural History Museum, I might entertain suggestions that the Earth is only thousands of years old. If I did not watch Ken Burns’ documentary series on national parks, I might barely notice current efforts to cut their funding.

Defunding the arts and humanities would lead to a world in which each of us is trapped in the present tense. The power of the subjunctive mood — the domain of “ifs” and “coulds” — would be severely weakened by the ease of concrete thinking and the allure of strategic lies. These would easily overpower our impoverished inventory of the symbols and collective memories that enable us to imagine and work toward a more just future.

Elyse Morgan, emorgan2975@gmail.com

On February 5, 2003, UN officials covered up a tapestry reproduction of Picasso’s “Guernica” prior to Colin Powell’s presentation for the American case for war in Iraq. A gift from the estate of Nelson Rockefeller that hung outside the Security Council would not be used as a backdrop for the Secretary of State. How inappropriate to show a depiction of the horrors of war right before the horrors of war were unleashed. So, rather than confront history, it’s easier to remove the art of historical memory. The Trump Administration is eager to erase historical memory.

My first exposure to art was through comic books. In 1954, comic books came under attack by the government, which viewed the horror and crime comics of the time as undermining American moral values and causing juvenile delinquency. Dr. Frederic Wertham, in his book “Seduction of the Innocent,” demanded that guardrails be placed around those books that he believed caused so much damage and stated, “I think Hitler was a beginner, compared to the comic book industry.” A comics code was established and decimated the industry. I read those contraband comics in the 1960s, they were the remnants of the three-for-a-dime pile in many candy stores. I loved them. They were gory counter-narratives to the placid 1950s. They did me no harm and enriched my imagination.

Someone believed that Colin Powell should not see “Guernica” and that I not read “Tales From the Crypt.” Today, the moral vigilantes of the current administration have defunded the National Endowment for the Arts in an effort to rid our American culture “of divisive ideologies and woke propaganda.” There are things this government does not want you to see or read. Once again, the innocent are being seduced. They don’t want you to see non-binary puppets on Sesame Street or read “The Diary of a Young Girl” or Art Spiegelman’s “Maus.” Multiple perspectives threaten the status quo. America is having an Art Attack.

There was a time when the White House embraced art and culture. John F. Kennedy, in 1963 at Amherst College, insisted that “our national strength matters, but the spirit which informs and controls our strength matters just as much … the artist becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state.”

Colorado Humanities was generously funded through the NEH. This non-profit organization — which sponsors the Colorado Book Award, Living History Festivals, Smithsonian exhibits and so much more — is facing defunding from the Federal government. This means that libraries, schools and museums will lack the resources that enrich vibrant, pluralistic communities. NPR and Public Television are under threat.

This administration is breaking some of our favorite things. We are not just a House Divided, we are a House Under Demolition. Our Congress needs to act with a sense of urgency. A military parade for Donald Trump’s birthday is not street art. Never forget that in a fascist state, art supports government; in a democracy, government supports art. Choose wisely.

Jim Vacca, jamespvacca1@gmail.com